1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to electronic mail. More particularly, it relates to building dynamic distribution lists from multiple selected documents.
2. Background Art
In a network environment, such as in a Lotus Notes (TM) application, a database may contain many user profile documents, each containing information about an individual including an E-mail address. Periodic E-mail documents are sent to groups of individuals. It is characteristic of such groups, that membership constantly changes.
Current implementations of Notes and web browsers require that groups be predefined in an address book. The maintenance of a constantly changing group is time consuming and prone to error. Typical implementations of Notes and web browsers allow a reply or forward function. The user selects an E-mail document or Note, activates the reply function, and the addressee the reply document is automatically set to the originator of the original document or Note. However, if a plurality of documents or Notes is selected, then the reply function is inhibited, or xe2x80x9cgreyed outxe2x80x9d. In such a case, the user must manually enter each individual to receive the note, or select a predefined distribution list containing the group of addressees.
There is a need in the art for a method for allowing the dynamic selection of multiple addresses.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved addressee function.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method for dynamically generating an addressee list from a plurality of selected documents.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method for automating the creation of a xe2x80x9csend-toxe2x80x9d field of a new memo from the selection of a plurality of documents.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a simplified method for sending mail to multiple users when a pre-defined group is not needed or desired.
It is a further object of the invention to minimize the need for pre-defining users and/or groups in an address book.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an improved method for enabling a user to reply to a plurality of selected E-mail documents in a browser.
In accordance with the invention, a method for generating an addressee list includes the steps responsive to user selection of a plurality of user profile documents of extracting the mail addresses from the selected documents and opening a new document containing the extracted addresses in the addressee field.
In accordance with an aspect of the invention, there is provided a computer program product configured to be operable to generate an address list dynamically from a plurality of selected documents.
Other features and advantages of this invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the presently preferred embodiment of the invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.